A nini ethnography In 2009 the word still did not exist in Mexico. Yet by August 2010, it was nearly impossible to watch the nightly news without suffering through yet another segment, interview, or monologue about the country’s nini Phenomenon. Nini, ni estudian ni trabajan, they neither study nor work. The first mention of the [...]

A friend asked me how and why it is I find the time to still read novels despite the fact that none of us have time to do anything these days. In last week’s New York Times Magazine A.O. Scott penned an interesting meditation on Susan Sontag’s consideration of photography as a fine art and [...]

I believe in the truism that we can only appreciate life when confronted with the irrevocable finality of death. I have never loved life more than in the immediate aftermath of when I was certain I would die. On those rare, few occasions everything changes. The concept of free will — acting without the constraints [...]

What follows is a hyperlinked version of the weekly newsletter of the Information Program of Open Society Foundations. Next week Becky Hogge will take up the newsletter one again. You can continue to follow new editions at her blog. News Turkey’s 138 Forbidden Words The Turkish Telecommunications Directorate (TİB) has sent web-hosting companies a list [...]